We will carefully match your skills and interests to the needs of the organizations we support, and our Volunteer coordinator will be in touch with you throughout your community service period.

Combined Volunteering/Language Program

We have designed a program of intensive language courses followed by a period of volunteering in an NGO or local institution.

Our aim is the protection of traditional cultures of the Andes through shared experience and the diffusion of knowledge. In most of the service activities we offer, the ability to communicate in the local language is essential.

After a placement test to determine your level, you will receive 3 hours of Spanish 5 times a week, for 4 weeks, for a total of 60 hours. Classes will be in conversation, grammar and/or literature, according to the students’ needs.

Individuals who choose so can receive intensive Quechua classes instead of Spanish, at the same conditions.

* In order to take quechua classes, its indispensable to have an intermediate level of spanish due to the fact that, because of the special characteristics of the quechua language all grammatical explanations are in Spanish.

Volunteers wanting to work in Quechua speaking communities will be offered our 4-week beginner’s Quechua course. We also run intermediate and advanced Quechua courses.

Homestay will be available through Centro Tinku in Cusco and most of the communities where our volunteering / service activities take place.

Please Note:

CENTRO TINKU DOES NOT CHARGE ADDITIONAL PLACEMENT OR INSCRIPTION FEES.

Language and Community-based Programs:

Undergo the adventure of a lifetime: Total cultural experience in a native community.

Language and rural homestay on Lake Titicaca.

After a period of intensive language in our Center, you will be placed in fishing and/or farming village on the shore or on an island of the highest lake in the world. You will live in a community of either Quechua-speaking or Spanish-speaking indigenous people, according to the language of instruction you chose.

Program:

Weeks one and two: Intensive Spanish or Quechua in Cusco. Accommodation in homestay, hotel or apartment.

The third week (or the number of weeks you have chosen to stay, between 4 and 20) : Trip to Titicaca, visit historic sites on the way. Homestay in an indigenous family and participation in the daily life of the community.

Language and rural homestay in the Andean highland

After a period of intensive language in our Center, you will be placed in a community of farmers or craftsmen or women located in the folds of the mighty Andes. You will live in a community of either Quechua-speaking or Spanish-speaking indigenous people, according to the language of instruction you chose.

Program.

Weeks one and two: Intensive Spanish or Quechua in Cusco. Accommodation in homestay, hotel or apartment.

The third week (or the number of weeks you have chosen to stay, between 4 and 20): Trip to the mountains. Homestay in an indigenous family and participation in the daily life of the community.

Spanish and Ecology of the Amazonian rain forest

After a period of intensive language in our Center, you will travel to the Amazonian basin, and experience the unique biodiversity of the rain forest.

Program:

Weeks one and two: Intensive Spanish in Cusco. Accommodation in homestay, hotel or apartment.

The third week (or the number of weeks you have chosen to stay, between 4 and 20): Trip to the National Park of Manu. Camping in the rain forest and ecologically orientated treks, study of the biodiversity and reforestation, environmental protection.

Special Volunteer Program rates:

(2011 Program costs)